ON THE FEMALE CONSTITUTION. 371 



sel and the shore, and even danced on it with the children. 

 Of this circumstance she afterwards, when well, denied all 

 knowledge. This was invariably the case ', but with equal re- 

 gularity she acknowledged and asserted it when under the in- 

 fluence of a paroxysm. 



On the following day she had a threatening, which went off 

 without being followed by the usual degree of insensibility. 

 She says she now knows for a quarter of an hour before the 

 attack. This day some local bodily symptoms were added to 

 her usual complaint, which it is unnecessary to particularise, 

 but which were fully accounted for by a horrid transaction 

 which on the following day (the 8th of March), her mother 

 related to Dr Dyce. Another young woman, a depraved fel- 

 low-servant, understanding that she wholly forgot every tran- 

 saction that occurred during the fit, clandestinely introduced 

 a young man into the house, who treated her with the utmost 

 rudeness, while her fellow-servant stopped her mouth with the 

 bed-clothes, and otherwise overpowered a vigorous resistance 

 which was made by her even during the influence of her com- 

 plaint. Next day she had not the slightest recollection even of 

 that transaction, nor did any person interested in her welfare 

 know of it for several days, till she was in one of her pa- 

 roxysms, when she related the whole facts to her mother. 

 Some particulars are given by Dr Dyce clothed in the Latin 

 language, and others were told him which he does not think 

 it necessary at all to detail. 



Next Sunday she was taken to church by her mistress, while 

 the paroxysm was on her. She shed tears during the sermon, 

 particularly during an account given of the execution of three 

 young men at Edinburgh, who had described in their dying de- 

 clarations the dangerous steps with which their career of vice 

 and infamy took its commencement. When she returned home, 



she 



